


MAYBE IN THE NEXT LIFE.

by mackaroni



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Magnus POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 15:02:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15318072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mackaroni/pseuds/mackaroni
Summary: It would be fair enough to say that Magnus was very familiar with death after a couple of cycles in. It wasn’t something easy to describe. There was the pain usually, of when he was being killed and each time it still hurt just as much. Then there was the quiet, just for a moment, before the feeling of being pulled onto the Starblaster, the fibers of his being stitched back together all at once. And there he’d be, busted black eye from the night before they’d left years ago. A little unnerving, sure, because he’d just been dead and all of a sudden here he is. He’d look at himself and then everyone else, all put back together too, and feel almost a little grateful that they got to try again.It was a little harder to watch his friends die, knowing that for them it was just as painful for him.





	MAYBE IN THE NEXT LIFE.

**Author's Note:**

> hello there !! it's your local disaster lesbian, zee. i wanted to write some taz stuff, and this was the first thing that came to mind! magnus is my favorite character, and i wanted to stay in character for him as much as possible, so i'm hoping you guys agree! anyways, i'll let you guys get to the fic, leave kudos/comments if you guys enjoy! next project should be back to critical role, i've got a perc'ildan fic in the works. thank you again <3

It would be fair enough to say that Magnus was very familiar with death after a couple of cycles in. It wasn’t something easy to describe. There was the pain usually, of when he was being killed and each time it still hurt just as much. Then there was the quiet, just for a moment, before the feeling of being pulled onto the Starblaster, the fibers of his being stitched back together all at once. And there he’d be, busted black eye from the night before they’d left years ago. A little unnerving, sure, because he’d just been dead and all of a sudden here he is. He’d look at himself and then everyone else, all put back together too, and feel almost a little grateful that they got to try again. 

It was a little harder to watch his friends die, knowing that for them it was just as painful for him. Then they would have that moment of darkness and then be back, but for him and the rest of the surviving members of the Starblaster, they had to live the rest of the year without them. Magnus wasn’t very eloquent, so the best way to describe it was that it sucked. He hated being without a family member, because at this point, that’s what they were. One of them dying left a hole in their chests, and he again was a little grateful that they got to try again. 

He wasn’t quite sure what he’d do if death held, just once, and someone was gone. He hadn’t thought that far ahead for good reason. 

Losing one of them was hard, but each person was a little different. Each one of them held their own dynamic in the team, and without one it was like being without a limb. And losing them early on in the cycle was even worse, because they were stuck without them, grieving even though they’d come back (hopefully). 

* * *

The time they lost Taako half way through a cycle was one of the worst times, for Magnus, for Lup, for everyone. Taako was their humor, the one keeping them smiling while they were watching the apocalypse, year after year. He was their master chef, making them feel like they were back home despite being throughout the planes of existence themselves. He was an incredibly intelligent wizard on top of that, and without those skills, it was a little harder to face combat. Good thing it was a world where they didn’t need to fight, otherwise they would have been in much worse of shape than Magnus originally predicted. 

The change was immediately felt between all of them. No one had seen him die, but they found his body, and after it was buried, they shared a drink solemnly, wishing the next six months would pass in the blink of an eye. 

Lup didn’t leave her room for a week. Everyone had taken their turns stopping in to give her food and water, to offer the slightest bit of comfort, but nothing could ease the pain of losing the connection of an identical twin, one attached to the hip from birth like Lup and Taako were. When Magnus went in, he wouldn’t say a word (he wasn’t good with them), instead just sitting next to her against the wall, a hand gently placed on her knee. Silence was eating away at her, she wouldn’t speak, not without the one who’d shout back responses or say things at the same time. Magnus could appreciate silence. It seemed fitting in absence of the laughter that would fill dinner times and explorations. 

Merle became more protective. If someone was leaving, he would come, making sure his healing magic was available. Magnus could appreciate that at least, for a cleric that sometimes forgot which way was up. That year, Merle saved everyone a couple times, because losing another person on top of Taako would destroy them even more. 

Davenport was much more tactical. He planned everything. Magnus wasn’t a plan guy, he was a rush in and fight guy, but he didn’t protest. Honestly, he didn’t have the energy to fight. 

Barry and Lucretia were affected too of course, they weren’t heartless. But they managed to keep themselves steady, maybe acting as the rocks for the entire team. Even Magnus had rested his head on Lucretia’s shoulder, a few tears falling down his face as she wrapped her much smaller arms around his wide shoulders. 

He wouldn’t admit it, but he cares a lot about Taako. He’s become something like a partner in crime, a brother in arms. (Family). He finds himself setting up jokes that reference media back from their home world, ones the elf would have jumped on instantly. No one else got them, or at least thought they were funny, and he felt like a piece of him was missing. Like he was being left hanging for six months. 

But finally, six months passed, no other major incidents thanks to Merle’s acute sense for danger, and they were restitched on the Starblaster. If he’d blinked, he would have missed Lup’s movement towards Taako, she was moving so fast. In an instant, she was tackling him, starting a long lecture it sounded like. But as she was pinning him down and speaking with her panicked voice, he could see the tears in her eyes, and then in Taako’s. After a few minutes, the two collapsed into a big hug, one that no one dared to end. All of their smiles seemed to return to their faces too, and Magnus gave a slight nod to Merle. 

Davenport yelled from the cockpit that things were going to get a little bumpy in their entry, and suddenly they were ready for the next cycle. But that memory of loss would always be there, for the rest of the cycles that they traveled through. And Magnus knew as much as they’d try, it was going to happen again.

* * *

 

Because of the knowledge that they could die at any moment, Davenport had taught them all how to fly the ship. They weren’t very good at it, except for Lucretia and Barry, but it would do for the escape from the Hunger when it came. And it was a good thing he’d started to teach them that cycle, because the next moment a native from the area they’d landed in had sent a spear through his stomach, leaving them to scramble together a counterattack. Capn’port was gone. 

Maybe it was telling that as soon as he was gone, the group mounted an attack. They were all so much more reckless without their captain, their plan-maker, their deliberator. Magnus and Lucretia were just kids compared to the rest of the crew, as humans in their twenties. Lucretia was always so tame, measured because of Davenport, but as soon as he was gone, she changed. She did solo missions without telling them, gaining strength in ways they couldn’t have imagined her doing alone, saying she needed to do something to keep them all safe. It was a little scary to say the least, but they couldn’t judge. They were all going through the stages of grief in different ways. Magnus too. He was throwing himself into the fight more often, coming back to the ship with near-deadly gashes and slashes and stab wounds. It was dangerous, he knew that, but without the voice in the back of his head telling him not to, he wasn’t really… well, thinking. 

Lup and Taako tried to keep everyone smiling because of their promise never to fall to the darkness again. They told jokes and made crazy food and used powers they normally wouldn’t, all to maintain the mental health of their crew. But it was clear it was running them empty too, because they were in as bad of a place as the others were. Still, they knew what it was like to lose someone from back when they were traveling together, and they could do their best. 

Barry again managed to keep his head level. He took care of them all like he was in charge now, even though he wasn’t nearly old enough to be their father figure like Davenport always seemed to be. 

Actually, that father figure role that Magnus felt but would never say out loud should have fallen to Merle’s shoulders, but the dwarf seemed most impacted by the sharp loss of their captain. Magnus wasn’t very perceptive -- his strengths were more about attacking, that he knew -- so he hadn’t noticed it until Davenport was gone. But Merle and Davenport would normally spend so much time together. They weren’t like Lup and Taako, together at the hip, but they were close, always touching like some stability to prove that everything was going to be okay. Without that, Merle was closing himself off, acting a little more snappish and picking fights about using spell slots to heal people when he normally wouldn’t have. Lup seemed to be the one to get through to him one night, and the cleric broke down about missing Davenport. It was a tearful night that they wouldn’t ever speak about again. 

The few months had passed, and they were put back together, Davenport back in his captain’s chair. He seemed to laugh a little, joking that he was shackled to the chair and he’d never get away, but the crew was immediately at his side, holding on to him as tight as they could. It wasn’t a shackle, not to the chair at least. But there was a string of fate connecting all seven of them, tied tightly around each one of them. The bonds -- the bonds that ran the engine, that formed the entire world. That’s what was keeping Davenport there. Silently, Magnus said a thanks to whatever was bringing them back -- the light of creation, probably, he didn’t really know -- thankful that he had his captain right back where he belonged.

* * *

 

He should have predicted the effects of Lup’s loss. There was a mirror of when Taako died, the light leaving her twin’s eyes in a second. For him, it might have been worse. Her body crumpled up in front of him, bruised and bloody, and he had to watch the light leave her eyes too. He didn’t think he’d ever heard Taako sob out loud, there was the times where it was muffled behind walls, hidden from everyone else. But this time he did, a whole piece of him gone, a piece that he’d always leaned against like a crutch. Taako didn’t talk much that cycle, and it’s where his attitude started to shift to one of bitterness. Taako would go on to talk about how people were dust, not that Mangus knew that, but this is where his heart started to shift to that mentality. It was hard to watch, because Magnus considered Taako above all else incorruptible. His heart was always supposed to be gold, and it wasn’t going to be anymore. He supposed, bitterly, that the Hunger did that to a person. 

Magnus should have predicted the effect on Barry too. It was after their sonata together to the Voidfish mountain, so they’d clearly already been together for awhile, even though it took them awhile. Barry’s shift wasn’t to a harder personality though, in fact, it was almost brighter. Softer. He was much more focused on the fact that he’d see Lup next cycle that he was… distracted. Not as focused on the hell they were going through but instead the coming happiness of reuniting. Magnus could tell: he didn’t care if he died either, because that meant he’d see Lup sooner. The darkness was only a second long. 

Lucretia, Davenport, and Merle went into battle mode. They needed to be smart about everything without their magic nuke, because that’s what Lup was. Death was standard for the team now, and with their brains put together (not that Merle had much brains), they could keep them safe.

And Magnus? He felt like he lost a sister. That hadn’t been a word he’d been able to pick out yet, because he wasn’t exactly good with his words, especially when he was face to face with someone. But with her gone, she found herself unable to do the same kind of pranks. Lucretia and Davenport were harder on him when he came home with dangerous things, or lit things on fire, or did things that were ballsy and cool. Because he didn’t have anyone to cheer him on when he did it, and he didn’t have a person to cheer on either. So instead he had to suck it up and act mature for a year. It kind of sucked, not that he wasn’t already acting mature for the entirety of this trip, but this was different. It was a somber kind of mature where he wanted to scream at something but couldn’t because that would be wrong. He didn’t do that. 

Finally, the time came. End of the year, they narrowly escaped without Lup’s help, but then she was there, and he’d never seen Taako sprint. He was more of a sauntering kind of guy. That entire cycle, Magnus remembers, he never saw the two of them apart. Guess Barry was more of a third wheel that year.

* * *

 

Merle was a cleric. He was dedicated to Pan, god of life and nature and all that is good. The dwarf may be a little crazy sometimes, but his message of light was something that kept the bond engine going more than anyone. He wanted all of them to keep moving forward, through the cycles no matter what. But he was the one putting himself on the line with the parlaying with John, and it hurt to see him disappear like he did. They all knew every time he went into parlay, he wasn’t coming back out, which meant it was preferred that he went later in the cycle, but it didn’t always work out like that. 

They’d just been restitched together, and Merle looked frustrated. Angry. The meeting with John hadn’t gone well, Magnus guessed, evident from that look and the grumbling under his breath about something John had said. 

The Hunger. Not John. Giving him a human name humanised it, it was a force of terror hunting them, year after year. It didn’t get to have that luxury. 

Davenport landed, and they started to plan the year ahead of them, but Merle was oddly quiet. He excused himself to his room, and went quiet for a couple hours more. It took until then for one of them to check on him to make sure he was okay, only to find the ghostly form of his body fading into parlay. They watched him carefully for the next couple of hours, stress eating away at them, before the mist of his form disappeared. It hit them like a bag of bricks -- they weren’t expecting to lose him to the Hunger this early, without him even telling them that he was going. Of course, there must be so much more going on in Merle’s head than Magnus previously expected, because discussing with the personification of the extra-dimensional being following them must not be an easy thing to do, especially when it ended in his death. 

Without Merle, it felt like the team wasn’t ever safe. Merle’s magic shielded them so they could sleep at night, so they didn’t have to think about anything else. Merle’s healing made sure they got back to the Starblaster at the end of their escapades, and without it, they were forced to patch themselves up, healing slower and not ever fully recovering. Merle’s rationale kept them from doing things they’d regret morally -- he chose light no matter the situation, but without his light, it was much harder to find it for themselves. 

Davenport seemed to be in a pretty bad place on top of it all. He and Merle had grown so much closer as the two older members of the Starblaster, and they had spent a lot of time together. Davenport even confided in Magnus that year that he felt closer than family to the dwarf, but he wasn’t sure how to put it into words. 

Especially when Merle was so focused on John. 

Magnus always put Merle on his shoulders to give the little guy a better vantage point. But it was an extension of his own sight -- they worked well together as a team. Without him, he felt like he couldn’t see something at all times, because without a member of his family he had cloudy vision. He’s not good with words, but it’s like someone isn’t watching his six when he needs them. 

A slow year passes, a whole eleven months, three weeks, and six days from when Merle had sacrificed himself. When they’re all back together, they all grab Merle and give him a long talk about staying with them. Lucretia leads the discussion with passion, telling him that they can’t tell the story of the Starblaster without the man, without one of the seven of them. Merle reluctantly agreed to wait for a while before going to talk to John, but it still… hurt. He still wanted to go and solve this, talk to the Hunger, maybe figure out how to stop him. 

They needed their cleric, because he was keeping them alive in more ways than one. 

* * *

Magnus shouldn’t have taken the times he considered Barry a rock for granted. Because when Barry died, all hell seemed to break loose. It’s like their emotions would just fucking spike, because the level headed scientist wasn’t there to help. Lup was a mess again, just like she’d been with her brother, locking herself away and getting snappish even with Taako. It was hard to watch for Magnus, because he knew the love the two twins shared, and because something like this could cause rifts in their relationship. He also knew the love Lup had for Barry, that much was crystal clear at this point, and it’s something he wanted for himself one day. But the trials of living through cycle after cycle were testing them all, and he maybe wasn’t so grateful for coming back. No longer was he eager to get away from the Hunger, hopefully with the light. Instead he just felt… tired. 

Lucretia looked tired too. She was doing an enormous about of work to combat the loss of their other head magic user, and she was refusing to accept help. She was tearing herself apart, and Magnus could see it, but there was nothing he could do about it. He wasn’t a magic user after all, he was just the muscle. 

Merle and Davenport were back to being protective. Usually the group would call them Dad as a joke, because they were acting so parental to the rowdy bunch of IPRE members that had found themselves floating through space. But now it felt more applicable, and the two were even handing out consequences for going against the schedule and doing things that were self-sacrificial. It was the only way they were going to keep Lucretia from burning out (and Magnus from rushing in to something he couldn’t get himself out of). 

Taako never left Lup’s side though. He was strong for her because Barry couldn’t be there to do it himself. That was something Magnus took note of, then and there. He was always wanting to be strong for his friends because they weren’t, but there were so many different forms of strength other than physical. He could be their shoulders to cry on, he could be everything for them. Of course, he already knew that, and he’d been like that for years now. But seeing someone else do it too put it in perspective. Magnus was a heart of the team, just like Taako was, and he had to step up. 

For the rest of the cycle, he prided himself on being there for each of his family members, learning their telltale signs of getting close to breaking down, and he ended up saving their lives more than they realizing -- he didn’t even have to wield a sword and shield to do so. 

When Barry came back, he felt like a piece of his soul was back. He immediately broke down once he was alone, because he’d been carrying the weight of his friends for months without putting it down. Once he’d put himself back together, he went back out, hugged Barry tightly, and told him not to act like a moron again. That was his way of telling him he loved him. 

* * *

Everyone had taken turns closing in on themselves. Magnus hadn’t taken one yet, because he couldn’t afford to spend too much time by himself without his family. It wouldn’t be good for them, and honestly? He would admit that it wouldn’t be good for him either. But then it happens -- he isn’t fast enough. Lucretia is felled right in front of him and he can’t do anything about it. 

He didn’t really process until then, but they were just kids. Barry was in his fifties, Lup and Taako were over a hundred, if not more, Davenport and Merle had slower ages as gnomes and dwarves. But him and Lucretia? They were only kids when they started this whole thing. By now they were around a hundred themselves, if the past eight cycles meant anything to that age count. It still didn’t change that they were like the younger siblings of the crew, and Magnus hadn’t realized that until she was gone. Without Taako he’d felt without a piece of him that completed his left open parts. But without Lucretia, he felt like Lup must have been without Barry and Taako. Without someone to remind Lucretia about the word outside her journals, she locked herself away. Without someone to remind Magnus that there was a world fighting for, he locked himself away too. 

The rest of the year passed in a scary sort of haze, where Magnus did as he was told so he would avoid their worry (but he had it anyways). He didn’t eat as much and he didn’t work out as much, he felt like his body was wasting away. Of course, he knew it’d be back in a year anyways, he could do anything he wanted to it. And he was still the most capable fighter on the Starblaster -- he wouldn’t let anything else happen to his friends. But maybe he didn’t really care about himself anymore. 

There aren’t enough words to do this cycle justice, like Magnus thinks a lot -- he isn’t good with words. It doesn’t seem fair, the one cycle where he’s most affected physically and mentally, at least to everyone else, he can’t figure out how to describe what he went through. He can’t remember a lot of that year, that’s for sure. He has vivid memories of pitch black night staring at the wall remembering things long past without Lucretia. They would talk for hours. He never realized that. He didn’t consider himself all that talkative until he really wasn’t talkative anymore. 

Maybe after this cycle he’d do a little more introspective work. Hopefully he wouldn’t feel loss of Lucretia like this again. 

Hazy days bled into hazy weeks and then hazy months. Finally the year ended, and he felt like he melted into the way it was supposed to be. He didn’t leave Lucretia alone for most of that cycle -- much to her chagrin. But he disguised it as keeping her on her toes, even though he was keeping himself on his own toes. Weird, right? He just couldn’t lose her again.

* * *

 

Magnus had died several times. Most of the time, they were towards the end of the cycle, which was good. He was the muscle. He had to be strong because his friends weren’t in the same ways as him, and he needed to keep them safe. Always. And these cycles were starting to get harder and harder, the Hunger -- John -- coming a week or more earlier, causing them to scramble to the Starblaster and take off. Magnus didn’t like the thought of leaving his family now, because without their hard hitter, he didn’t know what shape they’d be in. He didn’t want to leave them alone. 

Apparently, it was too late to have those thoughts though. The world was rugged and covered in mountainous terrain, and flying the Starblaster had been a pain in the ass. Leaving when the Hunger came wouldn’t be easy, Magnus knew that much, and he’d planned to be the big fighting force this year so the others could make it without experiencing the immense pain that the Hunter’s tendrils caused. But when he was out with Lup, just a casual walk between friends (who were now more like fierce siblings), his foot caught a rock wrong, and their hands just missed each other’s trying to recover. 

Before he disappeared below the cloud cover from their altitude, Magnus managed to shout one thing.  _ Tell them all I love them. _ It was second nature for the rough fighter to say it to his family now, because he didn’t know if he or one of them were going to perish while away from the Starblaster. But hopefully Lup had heard before he disappeared out of eyeshot. He lost track of the elf in his sightline once the clouds were his only vision, and then he felt his back collide with something. 

Then darkness. 

It was only a third of the way into the cycle. He didn’t want to leave yet. 

Then light. 

He was getting quite tired of the black eye that took exactly two days four hours and six minutes to heal, but there it was. He had his body back. 

One thing he’d learned after more than eighty years was how to read the room. More than that, how to read eyes. Their bodies couldn’t tell the story of the year that had just passed, but their eyes told the stories that wouldn’t be spoken out loud. And his family’s eyes looked ragged. Tired. Broken. 

Lup and Taako were at each other’s sides in record timing, both kneeling down and holding each other’s faces. A chill went down his back. Had they lost each other because he wasn’t there to protect one of them? Had it been his fault because he’d left Lup alone when he’d fallen? His hands normally didn’t shake, but this time they were, and he quickly tucked them into his pockets so that he didn’t have to let the others see it. But this wasn’t something he enjoyed seeing, as happy as he should be that the twins were together, maybe even being reunited. 

Barry was next to them, his eyes looking like he hadn’t slept at all the last cycle. He was standing next to Lup, with a hand on her shoulder, as he laughed at something quietly said by Taako. It was a happy sight, but it still felt wrong. 

Davenport was in his chair, but he was slumping back against it, and Merle was walking over, telling a joke about the last cycle that Magnus didn’t get. But out of the corner of his eye, as not perceptive as he was, he managed to see the two join hands, a breath of relief released from them together. John must be really taking a toll on Merle, even if he wasn’t still parlaying with him. 

Next thing Magnus knew, he was being knocked off his feet, unable to catch himself as he crashed against the ship’s floor. His head went into attack mode, like the Hunger was upon them within a moment, but a look up revealed Lucretia on top of him, having knocked him over with a running hug that he hadn’t expected. He let out a hearty laugh, wrapping his muscled arms around her slender form. He picked the two of them up, not letting go of her the whole time. Maybe they were the two kids of the ship, but they were over a hundred now, if those years counted for anything. Still, they could get away with the childish tackle hugs the twins did at the start of this all. 

Slowly, the team made its way to Magnus, each giving him their biggest hugs possible. He gathered that the escape from the Hunger this year hadn’t been easy in the slightest, especially when it was only Barry and Davenport that had made it to the final days of the cycle. Magnus’s mood fell again, sharp knives stabbing at his insides. No, he was supposed to be there to protect them, he was supposed to make sure they didn’t die like that. 

A hand on his shoulder from Taako cut his thoughts off. The smile was warm, uncharacteristic for the slowly hardening elf that had once been so cheerful (though he suspected it was always somewhat of an act, to make everyone else feel better even if he was dying). No one blamed him, no one was angry at him. But it didn’t stop Magnus from faltering, tears starting to flow down his face. 

This was another moment they wouldn’t speak of, where they were just sitting in a heap on the deck floor, crying together. They didn’t really teach classes on how to deal with living for so long, living and being the same physical state but their mental state growing each time. It was so hard, impossibly hard. The hero’s journey wasn’t something to be taken lightly, Magnus now realized. Because he chose to come on one, and now he was facing the weight of that decision every day, every year, every apocalypse. 

One day they’d put an end to it all. But for now… for now, Magnus would appreciate every moment he was truly alive. He wouldn’t leave his friends alone, not again, because otherwise he would lose his mind with the guilt. Instead, he’d be their shield, their fist, anything they needed him to be. 

He always would be their shield. 


End file.
